Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

[The EGE]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Correct - the original Charles River Railroad line. The ROW is plenty wide to accommodate rail + trail. The current trail (Upper Falls Greenway) only goes from Easy Street to the Charles, so "we can have your trail go from Newton Highlands or Eliot all the way to Needham" would be a legitimate selling point.

The Green Line ran 50 trains per hour per direction as recently as the 1990s. As of my 2015-2017 thesis, it was scheduled for ~43 and actually ran ~39. So with good headway management (see my research partner's thesis) and some infrastructure fixes like reconfiguring signals that cause unnecessary stops, there's no reason that the Green Line couldn't run 6-minute headways on the B, C, D, Needham, and E branches. (Or shifted around slightly).

But the future probably looks more like longer trains (Type 10s will be 90-110 feet long, so ~1.5x the capacity of current cars) on slightly longer but much more reliable headways (which will actually decrease both waiting times and running times). Just with new vehicles and proper terminal headway management, you could have headways of [B-5, C-7.5, D-10, Needham-10, E-6] with significantly less bunching and crowding than today.

With Needham trains duplicating every stop from Newton Highlands inbound, you're not really adding a full additional branch line - just adding a few extra trains to the D to make the split headways to Riverside and Needham decent. And Riverside will hopefully have Indigo service anyway, so GL service there doesn't have to take the whole park-and-ride load.

So tl;dr: Type 10s plus associated infrastructure upgrades plus operational practices would make a Needham Branch extremely practical.

 

[CSTH]

Re: North-South Rail Link

How exactly do you get the Needham line to Green? It looks like there were tracks at one time which lead to kind of near the Eliot stop but that's largely been converted to somewhat of a trail. Doesn't seem like it is realistic to actually get carried out.

To me it seems like either they will have to start pushing back on Amtrak to keep the capacity or it will just be eliminated.

FYI this was covered in great detail, with satellite imagery etc, a year or two ago elsewhere in the board (and also this convo should probably be relocated there instead of the nsrl thread)

 

[FK4]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Correct - the original Charles River Railroad line. The ROW is plenty wide to accommodate rail + trail. The current trail (Upper Falls Greenway) only goes from Easy Street to the Charles, so "we can have your trail go from Newton Highlands or Eliot all the way to Needham" would be a legitimate selling point.

The Green Line ran 50 trains per hour per direction as recently as the 1990s. As of my 2015-2017 thesis, it was scheduled for ~43 and actually ran ~39. So with good headway management (see my research partner's thesis) and some infrastructure fixes like reconfiguring signals that cause unnecessary stops, there's no reason that the Green Line couldn't run 6-minute headways on the B, C, D, Needham, and E branches. (Or shifted around slightly).

But the future probably looks more like longer trains (Type 10s will be 90-110 feet long, so ~1.5x the capacity of current cars) on slightly longer but much more reliable headways (which will actually decrease both waiting times and running times). Just with new vehicles and proper terminal headway management, you could have headways of [B-5, C-7.5, D-10, Needham-10, E-6] with significantly less bunching and crowding than today.

With Needham trains duplicating every stop from Newton Highlands inbound, you're not really adding a full additional branch line - just adding a few extra trains to the D to make the split headways to Riverside and Needham decent. And Riverside will hopefully have Indigo service anyway, so GL service there doesn't have to take the whole park-and-ride load.

So tl;dr: Type 10s plus associated infrastructure upgrades plus operational practices would make a Needham Branch extremely practical.

I read it all

Very interesting, thanks. What I wish is that more public officials could start wringing their hands about this eventual need to cut the Needham Line now, as F Line said. It's gonna take a long ass time to build momentum for something like this... I also cant find the discussion way back, but F Line definitely used to say that Hershey would have to be eliminated... still not clear why it couldn't have an OL yard there especially if the town was facing loss of the station vs forcing the golf course to give up a sliver of land. But either way, we're basically talking about things that the public would see as multiple projects (OLX + GLX) so it'll take a lot of coaxing and we need to start NOW.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Hersey wasn't included in any of the various proposals for rapid transit conversion over the last 60 years, so it wouldn't be now with either the GLX or OLX projects. Where they will get some relief is from the 59 bus being reshaped from Needham Ctr. to peel down Great Plain Ave. to ease some of the Needham Branch route duplication. They will also have grade separated walk/bike to Needham Jct. on the rail trail extension.

OLX has never gotten a formal study to Needham, because the original terminus past W. Roxbury was supposed to be Dedham Center (now blocked). The simple fact that a Greendale Ave./128 park-and-ride is poorly understood at present because of lack of prior scrutiny means that that leg (if there's even demand for one) is out-of-scope for the mode conversion project. They're only going to trouble themselves with the GLX branch to Needham Jct. and OL to West Roxbury/VFW Pkwy. on the base build.

Whether they backfill any of the gap between VFW and Junction (3.2 miles) afterwards is dependent on how the new transit order sets itself with:

• GL-Needham having its own denser-surroundings 128 stop one exit north.
• Riverside superstation getting RER frequencies via the Worcester Line, and some parking relief from the load-shift to Gould St. on the Needham Branch.
• Waltham/128 on the Fitchburg Line getting RER frequencies further north, and cascading load-shifts to the south.
• Dedham Corporate on the Franklin Line getting RER frequencies one exit south (possibly as a Fairmount Line service extension to 128).
• RER frequencies on Providence/Stoughton at Westwood/128.

A Needham poke on OLX is definitely not something you can predict today, because there are going to be so many adjacent RER touches to 128 plus the Needham Branch v. Riverside load-shift. It won't be clear if there's a sorely needed gap to fill or excess surplus-to-requirement until you rev up the commuter rail lines with dense clock-facing service to the 128 stops...then study to see if anything major is left wanting along that highway quadrant. So for purposes of the mode conversion (which is in the RER study because the corridor can't go full RER), past- W. Rox is all extracurricular. Pick it up later as a Phase II if need be, because it's not core to the current dilemma.

 

[jklo]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Would the Link make the problem worse, since Amtrak would try to steal more slots?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Would the Link make the problem worse, since Amtrak would try to steal more slots?

Needham? Yes, absolutely. There'd be a ton more traffic on the SWC, but most of the increases would be commuter rail run-thrus. Amtrak, because they're going to primarily stay a surface tenant, already has its 2040 growth levels spelled out.


NSRL's doubling of terminal district capacity will pack trains much closer on the SWC, but the hungriest slots will be Providence, Stoughton/South Coast, and new Westwood/128 turns from the northside. Still no means of bumming slots to give Needham non-crap service...and Forge Park will be entirely Fairmount-run by this point.

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Mods should move this to wherever it was that we mapped the rapid transit stuff, and not in the nsrl commuter rail thread

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Boston Herald reporting strange news:

"MassDOT has settled on a preferred design for a North-South Rail Link, with a steep price tag of $9.5 billion — though the project is far from being greenlighted.

The state Department of Transportation announced Monday night that if it were to connect the north and south lines of the Commuter Rail, it would do so with a two-track tunnel that runs under Congress Street and would include connections to the State and Haymarket stops." (my emphasis)

https://www.bostonherald.com/2018/12/11/massdot-chooses-potential-north-south-rail-link-option/

Did not realize a Congress Street routing was even an option????

 

[The EGE]

Re: North-South Rail Link

MassDOT: We don't want to build any transit ever, so we're going to continually lie about the costs and benefits of this project, then pick the worst possible routing so we can kill it.

 

[HenryAlan]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Boston Herald reporting strange news:

Did not realize a Congress Street routing was even an option????

I don't remember where I saw this, but the most recent quick review included Congress St. as one of 3 routings for study.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: North-South Rail Link

MassDOT: We don't want to build any transit ever, so we're going to continually lie about the costs and benefits of this project, then pick the worst possible routing so we can kill it.

MassDOT: Currently spending $2 billion to extend the Green Line to Medford.

 

[Riverside]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Did anyone attend the meeting last night who can give a firsthand report?

There are things I like about the Congress St alignment, but it seems rather kooky.

 

[jklo]

Re: North-South Rail Link

MassDOT: Currently spending $2 billion to extend the Green Line to Medford.

Sort of the point that I was trying to make earlier was that there's Real Estate investors who directly benefit (read: willing and able to bribe) for the GLX. Can't say that about the NSRL.

I like the idea of this route better than the one next to the CA/T if you are able to get stops at State and Haymarket included. It's also somewhat more resilient to flooding I would think. But two tracks is not enough.

 

[Semass]

Re: North-South Rail Link

MassDOT: Currently spending $2 billion to extend the Green Line to Medford.

Forced to do it by lawsuit. Tried typical strategy of making it overwhelmingly overpriced in order to kill it. See: Red/Blue connector.

Almost worked for GLX as well.

 

[stefal]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Herald notes this is scalable up to 4 tracks. Anybody have any ideas as to how? Clearing out the soil underneath with clean fill like the CAT? If that's the case, why not do the 4 tracks now rather than future-proof it, since the whole reason we're in this predicament is that they didn't install the NSRL under the CAT and instead future-proofed it and now we're not even going to utilize that space. Seems like a clear case of not learning from the "multi-billion-dollar lessons learned"

 

[FK4]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Wait this makes ZERO sense. The area beneath the Ted was specifically prepared for foru tracks, correct? Why the fuck are they talking about a two track option through the heart of downtown?

 

[stefal]

Re: North-South Rail Link

They note a more in depth analysis will come out in a month or so, but I'm going to guess the approaches to the CAT were quite complex and costly enough to warrant them looking for alternative alignments

 

[Arlington]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Wait this makes ZERO sense. The area beneath the Ted was specifically prepared for foru tracks, correct? Why the fuck are they talking about a two track option through the heart of downtown?

I'm not saying it makes sense, but suspect you'll get a list like this:

• Shorter, straighter routing
• Closer to tallest buildings & "the center"
• Central Station connected to Green, Orange, Blue
• Farther from the rising ocean.
• Option to build 2 now and 2 later

I'm not saying that I know that these advantages outweigh those of tunneling through the Big Dig's clean fill, but they are the advantages of a Congress St alignment. The real question is how they scored these and priced out the tunneling costs.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: North-South Rail Link

I'm not saying it makes sense, but suspect you'll get a list like this:

• Shorter, straighter routing
• Closer to tallest buildings & "the center"
• Central Station connected to Green, Orange, Blue
• Farther from the rising ocean.
• Option to build 2 now and 2 later

I'm not saying that I know that these advantages outweigh those of tunneling through the Big Dig's clean fill, but they are the advantages of a Congress St alignment. The real question is how they scored these and priced out the tunneling costs.

None of those bullets really wash. Shorten the length but go off-footprint from where there's clean utility-free pre-provisioned fill and the cost skyrockets immediately. Utility relocation alone is going to take a ghastly chunk.

The reason they didn't like the Dewey Sq. alignment for the SS Under and preferred the Ft. Point Channel alignment was proximity to the Fed Reserve building and terror threats from letting off a bomb in the tunnels. So...swing by City Hall and the JFK Fed Building instead??? That makes no sense by their own logic.

Why should we care more that Central Station gets connected to Green/Orange in addition to Blue when North Station already does that? In fact, the depth renders of NS Under put the southerly ends of the platforms so close to Haymarket that a secondary egress--if engineering proves it feasible--can/will already pop out there. And with any Central Station on either alignment it's still going to be a sucky elevator/escalator trip up from maximum depth to these rapid transit transfers. The one thing they can't fix is the 'vertical transportation' dwell drag on the upstairs/downstairs transfers, and that's always been a strike against Central Station. It's going to depress the transfer numbers if it takes in excess of 5 minute to get to/from the rapid transit level. When North Station is at moderately shallower depth than CS and minutes less on the escalators to change levels, few people transferring to Green/Orange are going to bother at all with changing at CS when they can save substantial time on their feet at NS. That still leaves the answer to "how much does the Blue transfer truly matter?" as the thinnest justification for even having the CS stop. This pivot to 3 transfers and a City Hall egress on the Congress alignment is thus well less than the sum of its parts, because of the sheer fact that there's no way to make vertical transport 'good' at those depths. Mind-numbingly long escalators is the constraint we have to deal with to have a Link at all, and also why the perma-fix is a blanket solution of tunnel slots, surface slots, AND rapid transit expansion because one-size isn't going to fit all (including the people who don't have the time to burn changing levels to hit their transfers). The 'vertical' impacts aren't discussed nearly enough; that matters the world to people.

There is NO difference in flood protection between alignments. Portals are exactly the same places they were before because there's only discrete places they can possibly slot...like for example the NEC portal which has to be between Shawmut and Harrison centered on the Washington block because west is the Orange Line tunnel and east is the giant mass of switches for surface Cove Interlocking. Portals will have to have flood doors and active pumping, but down below has no potential for water intrusions.

2 now/2 later was an option for the CA/T alignment, too, because 4 tracks would've required 2 bores. Exactly how they would've provisioned the other side for work later without work later costing twice as much wasn't clear (dig, but leave unfinished???). But at least it could be done, because the ROW footprint is over 250 ft. wide with nothing but highway above. I don't know how it could be done under Congress, which is 50 ft. wide. Every single building foundation would have to be underpinned in some way, even if they're digging 100 ft. below ground. How do they figure they're going to do that within cost?


I'm very suspicious that there's much if any engineering actually informing this preference. The construction unknowns alone make it extremely premature to be pegging a round-number cost on it, so until that figure is substantiated with lots of detail this smells an awful lot like more shifting optics games from an Admin. that's already tipped its hand about wanting to sack this project.

 

[FK4]

Re: North-South Rail Link

Thanks F Line.

Everyone who cares should email and tweet their local representative about this idiocy ASAP..